


Acceptance (Galra Keith)

by Lu_Jack



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Eating Disorders, Fighting, Galra Empire, Galra Keith (Voltron), M/M, Will Add More, klance, tortue (maybe)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:22:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22536205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lu_Jack/pseuds/Lu_Jack
Summary: Keith is having nightmares every time he closes his eyes, and his lack of sleep is starting to affect him and his performance levels. He’s never hungry and can barely swallow the food on his plate.Then he gets hit in battle.Things start to change, and he can’t hide it forever.What will happen when the team find out?How will they react?Read and find out!!!
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron), Klance (Voltron)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 120





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here’s this! I’m also posting this on Wattpad fyi

Keith was sleeping contently, his breathing steady, before he began to shift slightly. 

That shifting steady grew into tossing and turning as the night grew on, his face scrunched up and beaded with sweat as well.  
He groaned and mumbled something inaudible as he rolled over on to his other side yet again as his restless subconscious tried to wake him up on its own.

Keith was running down what appeared to be an endless hallway. He could hear the sounds of fighting around him, the sounds of his friends and teammates calling for back up, yelling and grunts of pain following the sounds of explosions that echoed in Keith's head, reverberating around in his skull.

He gasped as a bright light engulfed him, and he began to feel like he was falling.  
His eyes snapped open and he gasped as he came to a sudden stop. 

He looked forward, and found himself staring through a glass-like wall, the world outside warped tinted purple, as if he were looking through a glass of grape juice. 

He suddenly felt himself choking on a thick syrup like substance that filled his mouth and lungs after he had gasped, and found himself quickly falling again a second later, the world fading to Black a second time.

He then found himself in a raging battle, floating in space as he watched his friends attacking a fleet of troops around them in their lions. They were loosing, and needed help, but the red lion, his lion, was no where in sight, preventing them from forming voltron.

Even though he didn't have a helmet he could still hear them all shouting into their com-units for him, cutting themselves off with shouts and grunts every now and then as they were battered back and forth by the galra ships around them.

He gasped as a blur of red rushed past him a second later.

The red lion.

He sighed in relief and could hear his friends do the same as they saw the red lion.

But instead of attacking the galra ships around them it went straight for the closest lion.

Green.

He could hear the gasps and cries of confusion as the red lion opened fire upon the other Paladins, causing them to scatter, except for blue and yellow helping green since they had been damaged.

He watched as the four lions now fought the galra and the red lion.

He gasped as he watched the black lion charge at red, the two colliding in a flash of light, before plunging him into darkness again.

He gasped as he snapped his eyes open, looking around him. He was in what appeared to be a room with no doors, but one wall was made entirely of glass.

He could see Allura and coran on one side. Coran was just shaking his head in disappointment and Allura was glaring in at him as she spoke, but he couldn't understand her. 

He got that she wasn't saying anything kind or reassuring though, the glint of utter hatred towards him in her eyes making that obvious enough.

He couldn't move to try and communicate with her, which aggravated him. 

He blinked and allura was suddenly gone, replaced by shiro.  
His brother's prosthetic arm was glowing as he looked at Keith with a calm yet cold gaze. He was talking too, by Keith still couldn't understand him. 

Eventually shiro punched the glass wall between him and Keith in anger, causing the smaller male to flinch back in surprise. 

He could tell that shiro didn't do it because they were separated, but because he couldn't actually punch Keith.

He blinked again and found hunk, pidge, and lance standing there. Pidge has their left arm bandaged up along with their head, their cheek turned purple and slightly swollen from a bruise, all of this confused him since they had the pods, so why weren't they healed?

Pidge began to rant at him as best they could in their condition, seething with anger. 

Hunk just looked sad, but his expression quickly turned to something akin to anger as he looked up at Keith. 

Lance also looked sad, but he wasn't looking at keith or talking, just looking down.

Keith blinked again and only lance was left.

The blue Paladin sighed and walked forward a few steps, and put his hand to the glass.

He finally looked inside at Keith, and Keith could see the tears welling up in his eyes as his face scrunched up in slight anger.

He slapped his hand against the glass and began to speak. Keith saw anger, sadness, and desperation in his eyes and body language as the lanky teen continued to rant at him. 

Eventually he took his hand away from the glass and began to slowly walk away.

Keith lunged forward, to try and stop him, only to see lance knocked down by an invisible force, theee large cuts on his cheek and chest now, all do them seeping blood.

Lance looked down at his chest and reached up to feel his cheek in shock, looking at Keith with an expression of betrayal, before quickly scrambling out of the room.

Keith was confused before he looked at his hands, which were now covered in blood. 

Lances blood. 

He gasped and tried to back away from himself, bumping into a wall as he began to panic. 

His panicking continued until he felt a rumble. He looked down and saw the flood beneath him opening up, revealing a dark pit that he could see the bottom of. 

He pressed himself against the wall as the floor grew smaller and smaller, until he was forced to drop, cursing out as he fell and was engulfed by darkness again.

Keith gasped as he jerked up into a sitting position in his bed, panting heavily and drenched in sweat, the blanket a tangled mess around his legs. 

He closed his eyes as he tried to calm down his breathing, before finally flopped down onto his back when he managed to catch his breath. 

His covered his eyes as he gave a shaky sigh. He'd been having these weird dreams -no, nightmares- for the past month and he didn't know why. 

It was really damaging his mental state, not to mention his sleep schedule.

He sighed again as he pulled his arm away to look up at the ceiling.

'Well.' He thought.'time for another sleepless night.'


	2. Chapter 2

Keith was panting softly as he dodged an attack from the training dummy, grunting softly as he rolled to dodge again, slamming his shoulder into the ground on accident.

It was early in the morning, maybe six o'clock. He had decided to train to distract himself, get his mind off of his dreams and all. 

They were all different, yet had the same recurring points: him betraying, hurting, or even killing his friends in someway.

He sprang to his feet and aimed an attack at the dummy's shoulder, slamming his bayard into the fake joint, and severing the arm from the rest of the robot, the mechanical limb falling to the floor and bouncing a foot or two away with a clang.

He fought the robot until he beat it by managing to hit all of the sensors, before proceeding to face one on the next level, and then the next. 

He continued to train for several hours, redoing levels again and again and again until he beat them, before finally deciding to take a break.

He was sitting against the wall, a small towel wrapped around his neck and a water bottle in his hand. 

He took large gulps in between his pants, and closed his eyes as he tilted his head back.

"Hello." A familiar voice said as the doors to the training room opened.

Keith opened his eyes and looked up at his adoptive brother, shiro, as the older male walked over to him.

"Hey." He said softly before taking another drink of water.

"How long you been in here for?" Shiro asked as he sat next to him.

"A couple hours." Keith mumbled.

"Ah." Shiro began with a nod."Well, we missed you at breakfast, hunk saved you some food." He said. "Although it's almost lunch time."

Keith nodded, hiding his surprise by drinking more water. He hadn't realized he'd been training for that long.

"Do you want to go eat now despite that?" Shiro asked, looking over at him.

Keith shrugged." 'M not hungry right now." He mumbled, causing Shiro to sigh.

"Fine," He said as he stood up."But I'm going to check on you in an hour, if you haven't eaten by then I'll have Pidge and Lance force it down your throat." He said.

"Why those two?" Keith asked as he looked up at him.

"Pidge probably knows how to force it down without hurting you, and Lance would probably be able to hold you down, maybe with a little help from Hunk." He said with a grin as he made his way back over to the door.

"Remember, you have one hour to leave here and be done eating before I call for reinforcements." He said before exiting with a wave, which Keith returned with a small smile.

Keith did eventually leave to go eat, if only to make Shiro happy, since he still wasn't hungry.

He'd found the food hunk had saved for him on the counter, and quickly forced the meal down his throat and shoving the dishes into some sort of machine that cleaned them, before heading off to shower, still covered in sweat from training for so long.

When he got there he heard a shower already running, meaning that someone else was already inside.

He sighed and made his way to a stall farthest from whoever the other person was, and began his own shower, undressing inside the stall and chucking his cloths out into a pile near his stall.

He turned on the water and waited for it to heat up to a reasonable temperature before stepping under the water, enjoying the feeling of the water washing away all the sweat and grime that had collected on his body since his last shower along with soothing his aching muscles and the bruises he had gotten during training.

"Hellooooo?" A familiar voice called out.

Lance.  
.  
.  
.  
Shit.

"Hello." Keith replied with a sigh.

"Oh, Keith," lance said, sounding slightly surprised."where have you been all morning?" He asked.

"Training." Keith stated.

"Oh, well you missed breakfast." He said."Hunk saved you some food."

"I know, Shiro made sure I ate it." He said with a huff as he began to use the Altean's version of shampoo to clean his hair. 

It made small bubbles like earth shampoo, but it changed color as it cleaned your hair, getting darker the longer it was used until it stopped, which meant you'd gotten all the dirtiness and such out.

"Ah, that's good." Lance said."you should eat more, you're so skinny." He said. 

"Yeah, well how much I eat is none of your concern." Keith said with a hint of annoyance. "And you're pretty skinny yourself." He muttered to himself.

"Well sorry, Mr.skin-and-bones, for caring about the well being of my teammate." lance said with a huff before going silent. 

Keith could practically see the sour glare/pout on Lance's face.

Keith huffed and quickly finished his shower, washing the shampoo out and skipping the conditioning process in favor of getting out of the washroom so that he didn't have to talk to lance any more.

He quickly dried off and got dressed before leaving the room, not saying goodbye or anything to lance as he left.

He decided to go fly around with red, telling Shiro before hand of course, not wanting him and hunk to freak out like he knew they would if he'd left without saying anything.

He was decently far from the castle when he just decided to drift, turning off the engines and just floating along, letting his mind wandering to his dreams. 

They had been happening more often these past few weeks, almost every night now, and he didn't know why. life had been pretty calm recently, and they weren't in any immediate danger, not yet at least.  
And he wasn't planning on betraying his friends, which was the reoccurring theme that basically all of his dreams possessed. 

They were just happening, and he was sleeping less and less because of them, and he could tell some of the others were beginning to notice.

He sighed and leaned his head back as he closed his eyes, taking comfort in red's presence.

He knew he'd collapse eventually if these dreams didn't stop. Not only were they causing a loss of sleep, but he was losing his appetite as well, and had been feeling less motivated to get out of bed. 

Thankfully the lack of motivation wore off by the time he had gotten dressed, but it was still there.

Lance had been right about Keith being skinnier, and he knew it wasn't healthy, he was just never hungry any more, and really only ate when Shiro forced him to eat leftovers of meals he missed or dragged him to the actual meals and filled his plate with Hunk's cooking.

He should probably go to Coran or Pidge to talk to them about it, but it was silly. 

They were just nightmares and he wasn't a kid anymore. Besides, Coran was a chatterbox and Pidge would tell Hunk, who would then tell Lance and Shiro (out of concern), then lance would tease him about being a baby cause he couldn't deal with some silly dreams and Shiro would go into mother-hen-mode and never leave him alone and probably ban him from training and missions until he slept and ate more.

He took a deep breath to calm his mind, smiling softly as red purred comfortingly.

He didn't realize he had drifted off until his communicator woke him up.

"-Keith, come in-" shiro's voice said through the communicator in the lion.

Keith yawned and rubbed his eyes as he quickly answered with a click of a button.  
"Hey Shiro." He said softly.

"-Keith, Hunk made lunch so come back to the castle-" Shiro said."-we have team training afterwards-" He added.

Keith nodded."will do." He said, clicking his communicator off when he had heard Shiro do the same.

He sighed softly and rubbed his face, checking the time.

He groaned, seeing that he had only slept for a little more than ten minutes.

Maybe he could knock himself out that night, it might prevent him from dreaming, or he could try and find something to help him sleep next time he and the others went to a space mall.

He sighed again as he made his way back to the castle, which took a few minutes since he had gone a little farther out than he had originally intended.

Everyone was already at the dining table and eating when he got there, still in his space suit with his helmet under his arm.

"Ah, Keith, just in time." Shiro said with a smile as gestured for Keith to sit down and dig in."we were just about to discuss today's team exercise." He said before taking a bite of his food.

Keith only nodded as he sat down a few seats away from them. But, to be fair, almost everyone had at least one empty seat between them and the next person, so it wasn't to odd for him to sit a little farther away.

Hunk happily slid a plate down the table to Keith, filled with what he assumed where Keith's favorites, and he assumed correctly. 

It had probably been the plate he was going to save for later, but since Keith had actually shown up, he could eat it with them instead.

Keith mumbled a small thank you to Hunk -who beamed back at him and said you're welcome- before taking a small bite and forcing himself to swallow, the usually delicious food tasting gross in his mouth and his throat feeling like it was to swollen or something to swallow the food, making him feel like he was going to choke.

He managed to get the bite down, and took a small sip of water before tuning back in to what Shiro was saying.

"We'll be pairing up into teams of two," Shiro began. "One member will be bound and the other will be weaponless." He continued. "They'll be on separate sides of the room and will need to eventually get to the middle, relaying on each other to help with obstacles so that they can get to the end switch." He explained.

"Are we picking teams?" Pidge asked.

"Coran will be randomly making the teams, and will be randomly selecting what obstacles each member will have to face." Shiro answered.

They continued to eat their food -or in Keith's case move it around his plate and make it look like he was eating it- while asking more questions about the exercise: would someone need to go twice since there's five of them? If so, who? How long should it take? Could they do it on their own if needed? Is there an emergency stop? Etc...

The castles blaring alarms and flashing lights cut off the next question, signaling that Galra ships had been picked up on the radars.

"We'll have to save the training for later, let's head to the main deck to find out what's happening." Shiro said as he and the others stood up and ran towards the main deck, where Coran and the princess should be.

They found the two Alteans there, looking up at a large three dimensional map of the solar system around them.

"What's the problem?" Shiro asked.

"We've picked up a large Galran fleet on our sensors, they're headed to a small planet called Akai-87." Allura began, gesturing to a small planet not to far away. "The planet has very weak defenses, but a large supply of resources that the Galra most likely want to take advantage of." She said before turning to them. "The planet is primarily covered in some form of liquid, similar to water but a little bit different." She said. "The Galra would need to set up a floating base that allowed them to harvest the resources bellow the surface, which would harm both the planet and its eco system, and we can't let that happen."

"We need to either intercept them on their way there, or ambush them once they've reached the planet, it's all a matter of if we get there before they've reaches it or not." She said.

"You all best to prepare yourselves," Coran said. "Get all suited up and ready to launch if needed." He said. "Training is canceled for today and until further notice." He added.

The Paladins nodded before leaving the main deck to go get changed -or in Keith's case to go clean up a bit since he was already in his armor.

It wasn't long before they were all ordered to their lions, the princess telling them over the intercoms that they were close to the galran fleet, which hadn't landed on the planet yet.

They each shot off in their lions, charging head on into the fleet, not needing to form Voltron yet.

They all engaged in separate battles, helping each other when needed, either shouting out warnings to one another or moving over to help in general if one of them was getting overpowered.

But despite the fighting they'd caused the fleet was still getting closer to the planet.

Keith hadn't been paying attention to his surroundings, his lack of sleep mixed in with adrenaline allowed him to have tunnel vision for only what he was currently attacking, blocking out other threats.  
This is why he didn't realize one of the larger ships was charging up its canon.

"KEITH LOOK OUT!" Someone shouted over the comms, Keith didn't know who, because the next second he was struck in the side of his lion by the deadly blast of the canon, alien-electricity coursing through his lion and into him as they were shot down towards the planet.

He grunted as his body was knocked around inside his lion, the direct his from the canon resulting him to smack his head against something he didn't register as his body became riddled with pain, writhing in his seat as the strange electricity ran through him.

He could faintly hear the alarms in his lion blaring loudly as red lights flashed, and he barely registered the other Paladins calling out to him, but then they cut off into static as reds systems began to shut down, not that Keith really noticed, since he'd begun to pass out, the world around him going dark as he and his lion broke through the atmosphere of the planet and continued to head straight for the watery planet bellow.


	3. Chapter 3

"Keith! Keith do you come in!" Shiro called into the comms, trying to get a response from the other male, but all they got was static.

"Lance, go after Keith and try and catch him before he falls in the water," Shiro said. "Dive in after him and get him out if you need to." He added. "The rest of us will keep fighting the Galra."

"On it." Lance said, before turning off his comms and diving after Keith's lion, which was breaking through the atmosphere of the planet.

He wasn't fast enough, and watched as Keith's lion hit the surface of the planet with a large gloppy splash, disappearing beneath the surface a second later.

Lance muttered a curse and hovered just above the surface in his lion as he called Coran.

"Coran, remind me what this stuff was again?" He said. "Will it hurt the lions?"

"It's a liquid similar to earths water, but much stickier and more gelatinous, the lions might be difficult to get out of it, but it shouldn't harm the mechanics." Coran explained. "I suggest not diving in with your lion if you can avoid it." He added.

"Kay, thanks Coran." Lance said, before turning his comms off again.

He lowered Blue as close to the surface as he dared and pulled the front of his helpmate down so that it covered his mouth before walking into the lions mouth, telling her to open up.

"I'll be back soon girl, stay out." He said, before taking a deep calming breath and diving off of the lion and into the water.

The thickness of it disoriented him more then how cold it was. He'd been expecting it to be more like earths water despite what Coran had told him, and it kind of threw him off.

He turned his headlight on and began to look around for the red lion, spotting it slowly drifting farther away from the surface bellow him.

He began to quickly swim after it, and was able to catch up to it rather quickly despite it being much farther down to begin with.

The red lions mouth was partially open and he wriggled his way inside and opens up the hatch manually so that he could get inside the actual cockpit.

He took his helpmate off and shook off some of the sludge from his body before walking in to find Keith.

"Keith? Buddy, you all good?" He called out as he walked towards the controls, but didn't get a response.

He quickly walked around the chair and saw Keith slumped to the side unconscious, his head oozing a bit of blood. Purple sparks of electricity crackled across Keith's skin every now and then, making the other Paladin twitch, but Lance just brushed it off as a side effect of the blast that hit him.

Lance hissed as he looked at the gash on the side of Keith's head, knowing that it was going to hurt like hell of Keith woke up before they could put him in a pod.

'Stupid idiot, why wasn't he wearing his helmet?' Lance though to himself as he tapped on the side of his helmet, activating his comms.

"Shiro, this is Lance, are you there?" Lance said, before quietly waiting for a response.

It was a few second before he heard a crackle from the comms and shirks voice coming through.

"-I hear you loud and clear Lance, and status reports for Keith?-" He asked.

"I'm in the red lion," Lance began. "Keith's unconscious, has a head injury and jolts of the electricity from the blast still coursing through him." He said. "I think he might have a concussion but I can't be sure."

"-but he's breathing?-" Shiro asked.

"Yeah he's breathing, it's a bit labored and shallow though, he might have cracked a rib or something as well."

"-try and get either his lion out of there or try and get him to your lion if you can't, we'll go back for red when we're done.-" Shiro said.

Lance nodded. "Will do," he said. "I'll keep you posted if anything changes." He added, before turning off his comms after Shiro agreed.

He turned back to Keith and carefully sat him up, wincing when Keith groaned softly in pain, his eyes fluttering slightly.

"Sorry Mullet, But we gotta get you outta here and to a pod." Lance said apologetically.

Keith's eyes slowly slipped open and he groaned again before closing them again.

"Keith?" Lance said as he stared at Keith's face.

Keith opened his eyes again, much slower this time. " 'ance?" He mumbled, his speech slightly slurred as he talked.

"Hey buddy, how you feeling?" He asked softly, receiving a groan of pain as a response.

" 'urtsss..." Keith mumbled as his head lolled to the side, drawing out another groan of pain.

"Easy mullet," Lance said as he carefully steadied Keith's head, only to have Keith lean into the touch and close his eyes again.

"Hey, no falling asleep on me," Lance said as he gently shook Keith's shoulder with his other hand.

It didn't seem to do anything though, since Keith seemed to just go even more limp.

Lance sighed and carefully secured Keith's helmet to his head -which he'd found across the room from them- before gently hooking his arms under Keith's knees and his upper back, making sure he had a secure hold on him before picking him up as gently as he could, not wanting to cause any more pain for the red Paladin, but still grimaced as Keith moaned in pain.

"I got ya buddy." He mumbled as he began to walk towards reds mouth.

"Geez your light," he muttered to himself. "I told you you were too skinny, I'll need to force feed you or something when you're better."

He carefully maneuvered them through the hatch and back outside into the thick jello-like water.

The red lion had stopped sinking by now, and had left a trail of semi-stagnant bubbles going up from where it had sunk.

Lance began the slow swim back up to the surface, moving much slower with Keith's -albeit it small- added weight and the inability to use his arms since he was holding Keith.

His legs were burning by the time he broke through the surface, despite him having taken breaks.

He saw blue floating above the surface a few hundred yards away and called her over.

She quickly moved on her own and lowered her mouth so that her bottom jaw was submerged in the gelatinous water, but nothing else.

Lance carefully climbed into blue, thanking her as he rushed into the cock pit and settled Keith against the wall as he deactivated his video-comms.

"This is Lance reporting in from planet surface, Keith has been safely rescued by yours truly and we are now heading back to the castle, ready for two showers and one pod." He said into the comms in a joking voice, smiling at the sighs of relief he heard from the others.

"-Thank goodness-" Hunk said. "-Is keith alright?-" He asked, concern written across his face.

"He's a bit banged up and unconscious, and a little fried as well I think, but he's breathing." Lance said. "Nothing that a day in a pod won't fix."

"He did wake up for a few seconds though, but wasn't really able to tell me much other than that it hurts, I think the lights from red didn't help either, they seemed to hurt his eyes, so I think he might have a concussion." Lance added.

"-good job Lance-" Shiro said of the comms. "-Head to the castle, we'll meet you there as soon as we finish up here-" He added.

"Roger that." Lance said as he began to fly blue back to the castle, where Coran told them he'd already set up a pod for Keith.

They looped around the battle so that they'd have a less likely chance of being targeted by the Galra.

"-Based on the injuries you told me and the others, he should be in there for roughly half a quintant, maybe little less if we're lucky-" Coran said with grin.

"That's great Coran," Lance said. "We'll be back at the castle in a few doboshes." He said, before saying goodbye and turning his comms off.

He set blue on auto-pilot, trusting her to get them back safely, before getting up to check on Keith.

He carefully pulled the red Paladins helmet off and set it down next to them.

"Geez, you really did do a number on yourself didn't you." Lance said softly as he brushed Keith's bangs out of the way to get a better look at the gash on his head.

It wasn't horrible, and had stopped bleeding by now, but since it was a head wound it had bled a lot anyways. He was also starting to form a nasty looking bruise on the side of his face, blue with tinges of red and purple and a little yellow on the edges.

"That's gunna be a bit tender for a while, at least until you're out of the pod." He said to himself.

He carefully began to check around for any more injuries that he couldn't out right see, gently taking his armor off to get a better look at his torso.

He couldn't find anymore injuries as it was, but he assumed something was wrong with Keith's ribs. He knew the main problem was that Keith got hit by the blast, which seemed to have traveled through the lion and into Keith.

Blue told him they were at the castle and that they were about to land, so Lance gently scooped Keith into his arms again and waited for blue to open her mouth to let them out before carrying Keith out.

He jogged to the med-bay, doing his best to not jostle Keith too much and hurt his injuries while still moving as fast as he could to get Keith to a pod.

He found Coran in the Med-Bay, standing next to an open and ready pod.

"Ah, Lance," Coran said as he saw Lance rush inside. "Set Keith on the cot, we need to get him into one of the pod-suits before going inside, we don't want to contaminate the pod with that slime." He said as he took the pod suit off of the cot so that Lance could lay Keith down.

"The others will be here soon, they just radioed in that they're heading back now, Allura should be down any moment." Coran said, just as Allura walked into the room.

"Lance, it's good to see that you managed to bring Keith back." Allura said with a smile.

"It's nothing princess, just taking care of my teammate." Lance said with a shrug, trying to act nonchalant about it, but couldn't help smiling sheepishly.

Allura hummed in response before turning to Coran.

"I'll go meet the others in the hangars," she said. "Try and calm them down a bit before they rush in here all freaked out." She said with a small laugh.

Coran chuckled softly before nodding. "Righty-o princess, Lance and I have got things covered here." He said.

Allura nodded before waving goodbye and quickly walking out of the room.

Coran and Lance then went about quickly undressing Keith down to his boxers and putting him in the pod-suit.

Lance would have blushed from embarrassment under other circumstances, or would have protested undressing Keith, knowing that they should let Keith keep his privacy and that the only one the temperamental teen would probably be comfortable undressing him was Shiro, but the need to get Keith in the pod out weighed his feelings on the matter and he focused on cleaning Keith up a bit and getting him into the suit while causing as little harm as possible to the red Paladin's already bruised and battered body.

Both him and Coran managed to get Keith cleaned up, in the suit and in a pod only a dobash or two before the others rushed in. Turns out Allura attempts as calming them hadn't gone as well as she had probably hoped.

"Is keith alright? What happened? How badly is he hurt?" Hunk as as he rushed over to Lance. "Are you hurt, you're all covered in slime, is that what the planet was like, does it-" hunks ramblings we're cut off by Shiro putting a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"Easy hunk," Shiro said. "Let's let Lance or Coran get a word or two in." He said with a smile.

Hunk blushed and nodded with a sheepish smile.

"Well, according to the scans from the pod, keith is suffering from a minor concussion, a small head wound, two cracked ribs, and heavy bruising on his shoulder, jaw, and side." Coran said, pulling up a holo-pad to read the scans.

"The most intriguing thing is that nothing his showing up in relation to the hit that went through the red lion and into Keith." He said with a small frown before turning to Lance. "Are you sure you saw purple electricity in his skin?" He asked.

Lance nodded. "Yeah, it was kinda freaky, and it seemed to hurt a lot." He said with a frown.

"Well, it appears to have done nothing to him in a Druid-magic sort of way, which is good, we'll just have to wait and see if he's normal when he wakes up." Coran said.

They dispersed a bit after that, hunk going to the Kitchen to cook up some of Keith's favorite foods, or what he at least thought were his favorites, while Pidge went to her room to work on some project or something, and Lance went to go take a shower and such. He assumed that Shiro stayed with Keith, since he didn't see the older male leave the med-bay.

The warm water felt good on lances skin as he stood in the shower, then again, it probably wasn't water like earth water, but something much closer to it then the slime from the Akai-87 had been.

He finished cleaning up after a few more minutes of soaking, and changed into some comfortable clothes he’d gotten at the space mall a couple weeks back.

Lance made his way back to the med-bay, and found Shiro sitting on the floor and leaning against Keith’s pod.

He smiled softly and walked over to him.

“Hey Shiro,” He said softly a he sat down next to him. “How about I take over watch while you go get cleaned up and something to eat.” He said.

“I’m fine Lance.” Shiro said.

“I promise nothings going to happen to him while you’re gone,” Lance said. “I’ll watch him.”

Shiro hesitated for a few seconds before sighing softly.

“Alright,” He said as he stood up. “I guess I’ll go hit the showers.” He said. “Thanks Lance.” He added as he began to walk towards the doors

“No problem Shiro -and remember to eat something! We can’t have you getting as skinny as mullet over here.” He added, hearing Shiro laugh as he walked out of the room.

“Just you wait mullet,” Lance said as he turned to look up at Keith’s stone still body. “As soon as I tell Hunk you’re underweight you’ll have him trying to force snacks down your throat every waking moment.” He said. 

“Trust me, I know from experience.” He added with a slightly sad smile.

He wasn’t expecting a response from Keith, but still felt a bit more down when he didn’t get one.

He sighed softly and leaned back against the pod, closing his eyes and listening to the hum of the castle.

All they could do was wait now.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: there is some talk about eating disorders in this chapter

Lance sat there quietly for quite a while, eventually dozing off against the pod.

Shiro came and woke him up a bit later, telling him to go to his room and rest, promising to tell him and the others when Keith woke up.

He had refused at first, but was eventually persuaded to go to bed with the additional promise of Shiro coming to get him in a few hours so that Shiro could rest a bit as well, Lance knowing the older Paladin would sit by Keith's pod the whole time if they let him.

Shiro reluctantly agreed and Lance went to his room to nap.

Sleep came easy to him, which was surprising since he thought he'd be too worked up to even think of falling asleep, but he ended up conking out the minute his head was on the pillow and the blankets were covering him.

He woke up what felt like a second or two later to a knocking on his door.

Groaning softly he slipped out of his bed, sleepily walking over to the door, stumbling a bit in the dark.

When he opened the door Shiro stood on the other side of it, looking worried and tired.

"It's been a few hours, and you said to come get you around now" he began. "But I'm fine though, so you can go back to bed." He quickly added.

"Nope nope no no no nope, none of that," Lance began, waving a finger at him. "You're going to go to your room and sleep for a bit." Lance said as he stretched before walking out of his room. "And if I hear that you weren't resting I will lock you in your room." He said.

"You'll lock me in my room?" Shiro said with a raised eyebrow.

"I'll have Pidge lock you in your room." Lance said with a small huff, earning a laugh from Shiro.

After ushering the older male in the direction of his room, Lance sleepily made his way down to the med-bay, where he found Keith still in his pod.

He taped a few buttons and looked at Keith's updated scan results, and saw that he was doing significantly better than he had been earlier, and would be released from the pod in an hour or two.

He put the scans away and carefully sat on the floor, leaning against Keith's pod.

"You better not do this again mullet head, Shiro might die from worry if you do." He said, not including the fact that he would also die from worrying too much as well.

He was eventually joined by Hunk, who sat down next to him and gently rubbed lances back in a comforting manner.

"Maybe you should go rest some more, you look pretty tired." He suggested, seeing that Lance was having trouble keeping his eyes open.

"I'm fine, I told shiro I'd stay here with him till he got out." Lance said as he rubbed his face.

"At least take a nap." Hunk said as he held his arms open as an invitation. "I've already slept a bunch, and I won't let you sleep for too long." He said.

Lance hesitated before sighing and nodding, carefully crawling into hunks lap and tucking himself against his best friends chest, relaxing against him as he felt Hunk wrap his arms around his torso.

"Just wake me up before he comes out." Lance muttered as he closed his eyes.

"I will," Hunk said. "Then I'll get you some food, I know you haven't eaten yet." He said.

"Don't worry buddy, I'll eat eventually, I promise." Lance mumbled. "The one you should really be trying to feed is Keith, he's so skinny and light." He said."you definitely won't approve when you see for yourself." He added.

"I'll have to look into that," Hunk said. "Maybe ask him if he has any favorite foods he'd like me to try and make, or if he has any allergies, even though I don't think that really applies in space, wait, does that mean that I or one of you guys could be allergic to any of the food we buy? We could end up dying because of that, even though we have these pods and could totally survive if we needed to. But I doubt we'll be allergic to anything, right Lance?" 

Hunk didn't get a response, so he glanced down at Lance.

"Lance?" He asked again before smiling, seeing that his best friend had fallen asleep while Hunk had been rambling, but Hunk didn't mind, he'd wanted him to sleep anyways.

He held him closer and looked up at Keith in his pod, sighing softly, noticing that Lance was right when he said Keith was skinny.

He could remember when Lance had been going through some stuff back home two or three years ago, body issues and thinking he was overweight and needed to be skinnier in order to be pretty due to stuff some of his past partners had said and what the media said people wanted. He'd been skipping meals and even forcing himself to throw up in some cases if he thought he'd eaten too much. He was also working out a lot more, trying to define his muscles a bit in order to be more 'sexy'.

It got to the point where he was incredibly skinny and light, his cheek bones sharply protruding from his face, his cheeks sunken in, his limbs incredibly thin except for the muscle he'd been trying to build up, and his stomach was sunken in to the point where there was a dip from the edge of his ribs down to his stomach, which wasn't that noticeable unless you touched him, which included hugs. 

Hunk really liked to give the people he cared about hugs.

When Hunk had first found out, he'd been distraught and incredibly worried about his friend, and had tried to convince him that this wasn't healthy and that he needed to eat more and not push himself so much when exercising while his body was like this.

Lance had ignored him and shut him out, calling him a liar and telling him that he'd never felt better then he did right now.

It wasn't until Lance had collapsed at school and woken up in the hospital with a crying Hunk next to him that he'd finally realized and admitted that something was wrong.

Hunk had been there every step of the way on the road to recovery, sitting with him, helping him rest and eat light foods, comforting him when he was unable to keep the food down and threw it up, keeping all the awful comments from some of their peers away from lances ears. Lances immune system had become very weak, so even the common cold could cause him to collapse because his body was to weak to fight against it, so he was kept in the hospital for a long time as he tried to get better.

He didn't let Lance over work himself, and even developed an eating schedule for him, researching the best food for him to eat while he was recovering and listing the times he needed to eat and the foods he should eat at the times. He set lances phone to give him reminders, had given the list to his eldest sibling and his parents, and had printed out a copy to keep in his hospital room as well.

He wasn't there for the therapy sessions, but some of his family was, his parents, grandparents and siblings all just as determined as Hunk to help Lance through this, keeping him company and on schedule when Hunk couldn't.

There had been a lot more crying when his family had shown up at the hospital that day. The only reason Hunk had been there before them was because he'd called the ambulance when Lance had collapsed and rode there with him.

It took a long time for him to regain most of his weight and be able to eat food with out throwing it up, but he eventually got closer to what his weight should be for his age, even though hunk knew that Lance would occasionally have bad days where he'd look at himself in the mirror in a disappointed, judgmental and some times even disgusted way.   
He never tried to stop eating again though, and even came to Hunk or someone in his family when he was having one of those bad days, seeking out comfort and distractions from his own thoughts. He probably would have gone to Pidge as well, but they'd only met her -him at the time- after Lance had recovered enough to go back to school, so they didn't tell her about it, but Hunk was sure she'd heard some rumors, especially when she started to carry granola bars around and give them to Lance every couple hours or so throughout the school day.

It had been the most terrifying thing in hunks life, and he wanted to make sure he never had to see anyone he cared about being that skinny and sickly ever again. 

He made sure Pidge ate when she forgot to, he reminded Shiro every now and then as well, and even though he wasn't as close to Keith as he'd like to be, he always saved him a plate and had Shiro tell the other Paladin about it, and was always happy to see the empty dish later on, although now he thinks he'll need to try and feed him more often. 

He also made sure he himself ate as well, not wanting to be a hypocrite, which wasn't a problem really, and Allura and Coran seemed to have their own eating schedule that Hunk didn't want to try and mess with by forcing them to eat whenever he and the others did, they were always welcome to join them though.

He looked back down at Lance, smiling when he heard him mumble in his sleep and snuggle closer.

He really cared about Lance, and trusted Lances opinion, so if he thought Keith was underweight then Hunk would look into it as carefully as he could.

He sat there for and hour or so, letting Lance sleep on him for a good long while before reluctantly waking him up, only because he promised to wake him up before Keith got out of the pod and he was due to get out in twenty or so minutes.

Lance grumbled as Hunk gently shook his shoulder, snuggling closer to him as he tried to remain asleep, which made Hunk very tempted to let him keep sleeping, but he knew Lance would be upset later if he let him sleep, so he continued to try and wake him up.

"Lance, buddy, Keith's gunna come out of the pod soon." He said softly as he shook his shoulder again. "You gotta wake up now."

Lance whined as he opened his eyes slowly and look up at Hunk.

"Have a nice nap?" Hunk asked as he smiled down at him.

Lance nodded and shifted so that he was facing the pod, still in hunks lap.

"Can I stay here? You're warm and the ground is really cold." Lance asked as he leaned back against Hunk.

"Sure buddy, you can stay, just know that you'll need to get up in twenty minutes when Keith comes out." Hunk said.

"Twenty minutes?!" Lance said in surprise as he jerked around to look at Hunk. "Hunk, how long did you let me sleep for?" He asked.

"Oh, like an hour or something." Hunk said with a shrug.

"Why didn't you wake me up sooner, you're probably uncomfortable." Lance said as he began to crawl out of hunks lap, only to be stopped by Hunk wrapping his arms around his torso and pulling him back.

"I'm fine Lance, really," Hunk said. "My legs didn't even fall asleep or anything." He added.

Lance sighed but reluctantly relaxed back against Hunk. "Fine," He said. "But next time wake me up sooner, I could have at least talked to you so that it wasn't so boring." He said.

"Sure Lance, whatever you say." Hunk said.

"For some reason I don't think you mean that." Lance said.

"Oh really? And why is that?"

Lance shrugged."Just a hunch."

Hunk laughed, and was soon joined by Lance in his laughing, the two of then smiling brightly.

Just then the pod beeped and began to slide open, causing the two to scramble back and to their feet.

"I thought you said twenty minutes?" Lance said.

"I thought it said twenty minutes, I'm not as good at translating Altean-time to earth-time as you." Hunk defend himself, before stumbling forward a bit to catch Keith as he fell out.

'Oh yeah, definitely need to get you to eat more.' Hunk thought to himself as he held Keith, feeling how light and skinny he was.

"Keith?" Lance asked softly as he stood next to Hunk.

Keith groaned softly and slowly opened his eyes.

"Guys?" He mumbled as he slowly stood up on his own feet, his legs a bit shaky.

"How are you feeling?" Hunk asked as he steadied Keith, gently holding onto his forearms.

"Um, better I guess?" He said. "I don't quite remember..." he trailed off.

"We can explain when we get some food in you." Hunk said. "Come on, we should go tell the others you're up as well."

"I'm not actually hungry..." Keith said as he was lead out of the room and towards the kitchen.

"How are you not hungry? Everyone hungry after getting out of the pods." Lance said as he walked on Keith's other side.

"Well I'm not." Keith said as he glared over at Lance.

"Even if you're not hungry it's still good to eat something after coming out of the pods." Hunk said. "So we'll find you something light to eat for now, and hopefully you're hungry enough to eat something more later." He said as he lead them into the dining room.

"Now sit down while I go get you some food and tell the others you're out of the pod." Hunk said. "Lance make sure he doesn't leave."

"On it." Lance said with a mock salute, before plopping down into the seat next to Keith.

"So how you feeling mullet?" Lance asked after Hunk had left.

"Why do you care?" Keith asked as he crossed his arms and glared at him.

"Oh I don't know, maybe cause I had to save you after you crashed your lion into the planet? Or maybe because you were in pretty bad shape when I found you and I was worried?" Lance said as he glared back at him.

Keith huffed and looked away from Lance.

"I'm fine." He said.

"Are you though? Cause last I saw you you were telling me it hurt a whole lot and then you passed out, and when I got you back you spent almost half the day in a pod." Lance said. "Are you actually fine after all that?"

"Yes, I am, now drop it." Keith growled.

"Oh you want me to drop it? Fine, next time you're passed out in your lion I won't dive down into some freezing gross jelly water to save you." He said, crossing his own arms and turning away from Keith.

They sat in silence for a few minutes before Keith sighed.

"Thank you," He mumbled. "For saving me." He said.

"I don't know what I told you cause I can't really remember, but just know that I'm fine." He added.

Lance uncrossed his arms and turned to look at him again.

"Okay," He said as he rubbed his face. "I just- we were just really worried about you, you got hit by that canon dead on and weren't responding." He said."and then you were in bad shape when I found you...." he trailed off.

"Sorry for making you worry." Keith said.

"You should apologize to Shiro, he didn't want to leave your side until you woke up, I had to threaten to lock him in his room before he actually got some rest."

"You'd lock him in his room?" Keith raised an eyebrow.

"I'd have Pidge lock him in his room." Lance said with a small huff, gaining a small laugh from Keith.

"Yeah, that sounds like Shiro, he's a big worry wart." Keith said.

"I can relate," Lance said. "I'm youngest with two older brothers and two older sisters." He said. "They worry so much about everything."

"Yeah, older siblings seem to do that a lot." Keith said.

"Are you and Shiro brothers?" Lance asked.

"Uh, not really, but we're basically brothers." Keith said as he looked away.

"Ah, well you guys act like brothers a lot," Lance said. "I'm sure he-" Lance was cut off by the doors opening and Pidge rushing inside.

"Keith!" She said as she ran over to his chair with Shiro quickly following her.

"Are you okay? How are you feeling? Does anything hurt? What do you-" Shiro was cut off from his rambling by Keith holding a hand up.

"I'm fine, Shiro, honestly, a little bump to the head isn't going to kill me." Keith said with a small huff.

"Oh hush and let me worry." Shiro said as he began to look Keith over, checking to see if any of the bruising was still there and such.

"Stop," Keith said as he half heartedly pushed Shiro away.

"Fine fine," Shiro said with a small laugh and a smile. "It's good to see you feeling better, I didn't get to see you before you were in the pod, but you looked pretty banged up for a while there." He said.

"Don't you ever do that again." Pidge said. "You gave us all a heart attack and I'm too young to die." She said.

"Um, I'll try?" Keith said.

"I have food!" Hunk said as he came back into the room, carrying a few bowls of food.

"Shiro, I know you and Lance haven't eaten, so these two bowls are for you guys, and this is for Keith." Hunk said as he passed the food out.

"Thank you hunk." Lance said as he took a bite of his food.

Shiro sat down on Keith's other side and began to eat his food as well. "Thank you." He said.

Keith bit his tongue and poked at his food with the spoon he'd been given. He really wasn't all that hungry, but he didn't want to make the others worry even more, so he forced a couple of bites down, the food feeling foreign in his mouth, his gag reflex trying to prevent him from swallowing, but he pushed through it and forced it down.

"Thanks hunk." He muttered, gaining a bright smile from the other Paladin.

"So, can you guys explain what happened? It's all a bit fuzzy." Keith said as he stirred the goo around with his spoon.

The others immediately jumped into the story of what happened, with Lance taking over when it go to the part where he went to rescue him, although he didn’t know how much of that he could believe, not knowing if Lance was exaggerating or not.

When they were finished telling him what had happened he was ushered off to his room, being told to go to bed and rest up a bit more, saying that he shouldn’t strain himself after just coming out of a pod.

Thankfully none of them seemed to notice his barely touched bowl of food-goo, so he was able to go to his room and rest without interruption.

He found himself laying in bed, staring at the wall next to him as he tried to sleep, but he didn’t feel tired. His time in the pod seemed to have helped with that little problem, since he didn’t think he’d had any nightmares in the pod, none that he could remember at least.

But he was sure the minute he closed his eyes he’d be plunged into another horrifying nightmare.

He curled up slightly, wrapping his arms around his spare pillow as he tried to fall asleep, wanting to just forget everything for a little while.

Sleep didn’t come easy, but after what felt like hours he managed to drift off, managing to sleep through most of his nightmares before being shocked awake with a small cry by another nightmare, this one much worse than all the others.

His hands shook and his breathing was rapid. He was covered in a cold sweat and he could feel adrenaline pumping through his veins.

Then there was a small knock on his door.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haven’t updated this in forever  
> I should probably update.  
> This chapter is pretty crappy, sorry.

"Keith? Buddy, you awake in there?" A familiar voice drifted through the door from the other side as another knock resounded through the room.

Keith took a soft shaker breath as he rubbed his face a bit with his blanket, trying to get rid of all the tears and cold sweat, before standing up and walking over to the door, touching the panel next to it to open it up.

Lance stood on the other side of the door with a plate of food in his hand, looking a little surprised.

"Oh, you are awake," Lance said. "Good."

"What do you need?" Keith asked, cringing slightly at the sound of his voice, his felt sore and his voice ended up coming out hoarse.

"Uh, well, you slept through dinner, which was an hour ago or something, so hunk made you this." Lance said as he held the plate of food out.

Keith looked at the food and swallowed thickly, feeling a little sick at the thought of eating.

"Um, thanks, but I'm not hungry." Keith said as he moved to close the door, but Lance quickly shot his foot and hand out, stopping the door.

"Oh come on mullet, sure you ate breakfast, but you didn't eat lunch and I know you barely touched the food hunk gave you earlier." Lance said. "You can't not be hungry." 

"Well I'm not hungry okay! Just because you think I am or should be doesn't mean I am." Keith said with a glare as he tried to close the door again, only for Lance to shoot his foot out and stop it from closing long enough for him to slip his way into the room, twirling around Keith and ducking under his arm.

"You're not getting out of this that easily." Lance said with a determined expression.

"Get out of my room Lance!" Keith said as he glared at him, a small snarl on his face.

"Not gunna happen mullet," Lance said as he moved to sit criss-cross on the edge of Keith's bed. "Only way to get me off of this bed and out of this room is to either eat this food right not or tell me why you won't." He said as he crossed his arms.

Keith's glare hardened. "Or I could just drag you out." He said.

"But you won't, cause then I'll spill the food all over your bed and you'll have to clean it up and I'm sure you don't want that." Lance said with a cocky smirk.

"I'd rather that than your annoying ass on my bed." Keith said as he stalked over to him and grabbed his ankle before yanking him off the bed, holding back a wince as Lance yelped and crashed to the floor, just barely managing to save the food from spilling and making a mess.

Keith began to drag Lance by his ankle towards the door, ignoring his shrieks and flailing.

"Wait wait wait! Jesus calm down mullet!" Lance said as he finally managed to wrench his ankle free from Keith's tight hold, scrambling back a little bit.

"We're worried okay," Lance said as he stumbled to his feet, backing up another few steps into the room. "You've been skipping meals and both Hunk and I know how skinny you are, heck you weighed barely anything when I carried you earlier." Lance said.

Keith looked away with a huff. "Just the adrenaline..." he muttered.

"No no no, don't you dare try to brush this off." Lance said with an upset expression, which quickly melted into a weary one.

"Look, I don't know if you're going through the, uh, the same thing I did, but this," Lance gestures up and down towards Keith's body. "Whatever it is you're doing, isn't healthy." He continued.

"I don't know if anyone else has noticed yet, but both me and hunk have, and we're worried, okay, you're our friend and we care about you." Lance said as he looked at Keith, trying to meet his eyes.

Keith still looked away, his arms crossed.

"I'm not hungry..." he mumbled.

Lance sighed exasperatedly. "Keith-"

"No, what I mean is...." Keith hesitated, before looking at Lance, "you can't tell Shiro, or anyone else." He quickly said.

Lance bit his lip, hesitant to agree, but ended up nodding anyway.

Keith sighed softly and looked away. "I'm not... I'm not intentionally not eating," he said. "I really just don't feel hungry, and when I try to eat I can barely get it down and feel sick when I do." He said as he rubbed his face. "My throat feels to tight and my gag reflex kicks in when I try to swallow." He said.

"I know it's not healthy, but there's nothing I can do," he said.

"Keith you could talk to someone, literally anyone." Lance said as he set the plate of food down on Keith's bed before walking a few steps closer to him. "I'm listening to you, Hunk would have listened, Shiro, Allura, Pidge, heck even Coran would have listened to you." He said. "That isn't healthy and might be some sort of terrifying space disease or something, you should probably tell Coran, and he can check you out for anything." Lance said.

Keith sighed. "I can deal with this on my own." He said.

"No no no, I am 100% certain that this is not something you can deal with on your own." Lance said as he put a gentle hand on Keith's shoulder. "Trust me, malnourishment isn't something you can deal with in your own." He said. "You're probably lucky you haven't passed out yet."

Keith huffed and crosses his arms, looking away.

Lance sighed exasperatedly."Fine, you have people here willing to help you," Lance said as he as he walked towards the door, leaving the food in Keith's room. "Come find one of us when you're willing to let someone help." He said, before pausing at the doorway, "maybe try talking to Hunk, he's good at this sort of thing." He said softly, before leaving the room, the door automatically closing behind him.

Keith sighed softly, rubbing his face as he moved to sit on his bed.

He looked over at the plate of food, sitting innocently on the corner of the bed.

It looked good yet utterly disgusting at the same time, and the idea of eating it made his throat close up a bit and his gag reflex act up a little.

He covered his mouth, taking a second to breath, before carefully picking up the place and moving it off of the bed, before laying down, his face pressed into his pillow.

Maybe he should talk to someone.

———

Hunk was laying in bed, having a bit of trouble falling asleep, when there was a soft knock on his door.

"Come in," he called out as he sat up, wondering who it would be. He would have assumed Lance, but Lance just walked in at this point, not bothering to knock.

There was a few seconds of silence before the door slip open, revealing a wary looking Keith.

"Oh, hey Keith." Hunk said as Keith stepped inside and the door closed behind him.

"Hey..." He said, glancing around the room.

"So uh, what's up?" Hunk asked as he shifted to make more room on the bed, before gesturing for Keith to sit down.

Keith crossed his arms and sat down on the foot of the bed, one leg on the bed with the other dangling off.

"Lance...Lance said I should talk to you." He said, finally looking at Hunk.

"Did he?" Hunk asked, tilting his head slightly, "and talk to me about what?" He asked.

Keith shifted slightly, bringing his other leg up onto the bed.

"About eating problems." He said warily, looking away.

"Oh," Hunk said softly, his posture changing a little bit.

"You can't talk to anyone else about this, except for maybe Lance." Keith said as he moved his arms to loosely loop around his legs.

"Alright," Hunk said as he shifted nervously. "What seems to be the problem?" He asked.

“Well, whenever I try to eat if feels like my throat is closing up or swelling or something, and my gag reflex kicks in, so I don’t usually get much of anything down, and the stuff I do manage to get down eventually come back up with in a few hours.” He said. “It wasn’t always as bad as it is now.”

“How long has this been going on for?” Hunk asked, concern blatantly written across his face.

“A few weeks.” Keith said.

“Well, it’s not intentional, right?” Hunk asked cautiously.

“No it’s not.” Keith said.

“Well, that’s good.” Hunk said.

“Maybe we could try and test and see what food you can get down, maybe it’s just some sort of food sensitivity thing or allergy?” He said.

“But I’ve eaten most of the foods I can’t get down before.” Keith said. “Why now?” He asked.

“I don’t know....” Hunk trailed off. “Maybe we could ask Coran about it? He might know.” He suggested.

“No, he might tell Allura who might tell Shiro, and I don’t want him to know, he has enough on his shoulders right now anyways.”

“I’m sure he’d like to know anyway,” Hunk said. “But if you really don’t want to then I guess we can try and figure it out on our own, maybe with lances help since he knows.” Hunk said, feeling like this was a little bit too important to try and solve themselves, but not wanting to push Keith.

Keith sighed softly, looking a little bit relieved, “thanks.” He said.

“Sorry if I woke you up,” Keith added, looking a little sheepish.

“No it’s fine, I wasn’t even asleep.” Hunk said reassuringly.

“Why are you up so late?” Keith asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Just couldn’t sleep.” Hunk said with a shrug. “You on the other hand just got out of a pod and need to go rest up.” Hunk said.

“I’m fine,” Keith said.

“Keith, I will carry you to your room.” Hunk said, “and don’t think I won’t, just ask Lance and Pidge.” He added, gaining a small smile from Keith, who grudgingly got up.

“Fine fine,” He said as he began to walk towards the door.

He stopped and turned back to Hunk.  
“Um, thank you, for listening and offering to help, and promising not to tell anyone.” Keith said awkwardly.

“It’s nothing,” Hunk said, “if you ever need anything just come find me.” He said.

Keith slowly nodded, “you too.” He said, before turning and opening the door, “night.” He said.

“Good night.” Hunk said with a small wave, and then the door was shut and Keith was gone.

Hunk didn’t go to sleep though.

He had too much to think about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a crappy chapter, I apologize.  
> And another note, this may become Lance x Hunk x Keith fic, but I’m still debating, any ideas or preferences?

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for any spelling errors!!


End file.
